October 19, 2006
OLDaily
[link: 1 Hits] Judy O'Connell is summarizing the talks from the Global Summit, with a good outlin of
SeymourPapert talk. She also looks at George Siemens's talk at
Leigh Blackall's. Of the latter she says, "though the politics of life will often mean that opinions expressed this way will be be counter-productive." Well, I look at Seymour Papert, and I look at myself, and I look at Leigh Blackall, and it seems to me we have three generations of people saying the same thing, and still the news comes, as O'Connell notes, a "surprise" to those attending. So in my books, while I'm not sure I'd let him book hotels for me again, I think Blackall can be as vehement as he wants - I certinly don't see that diplomatic language is working, and somebody needs to shake things up. [Tags:
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Online Learning] [
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[link: Hits] I've been a bit slow linking to this, but I want to make sure the objection to my position is noted: "The 'freedom' of networks is especially problematic in learning. If there is no goal âx" such as 'lets try to understand this phenomena together' âx" very little useful learning will take place." [Tags:
Linking and Deep Linking,
Networks] [
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[link: Hits] Concerns are being expressed about the potential impact of a proposed directive to extend Europe's broadcast regulations to the internet. "This is not only a question of culture and freedom but also a question of education. Think of learning object repositories, like LeMill, setup by the people for the people. Soon you need a broadcasting license to run one." [Tags:
Learning Objects,
Learning Object Repositories,
European Union] [
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[link: 3 Hits] Was it now? I hadn't noticed. "This long overdue browser is already so far behind the offerings from Mozilla and Opera that it will take several years to make up the distance." Yeah, but as CNet says, if you use windows, install it anyways (then install the first security patch), because so much of Windows depends on IE. [Tags:
Microsoft,
Operating Systems,
Security Issues] [
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[link: Hits] Cool. "OMN is a non-profit focused on making it easier to find high-quality programming on demand through the Internet. Our Internet TV Viewer lets you find and download media intended to inform, educate and engage. It provides an Internet home base for downloading, listening and watching high-quality video and audio. Like iTunes for online music collections, the OMN Internet TV Viewer downloads and manages the media you select and makes it available to whichever device you want to watch it on: your PC, your home TV through TiVo, or your portable video player or iPod. OMN has over 40,000 programs and adds more every day. It's smart, free Internet TV." This link and the next via Simon Fenton-Jones posting on Networks. [Tags:
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[link: Hits] This is a nice program and I'm glad people are doing this. "A library uses the LOCKSS software to turn a low-cost PC into a digital preservation appliance (a LOCKSS Box) that performs four functions: it collects newly published content from the target e-journals using a web crawler similar to those used by search engines; it continually compares the content it has collected with the same content collected by other LOCKSS Boxes, and repairs any differences; it acts as a web proxy or cache, providing browsers in the library's community with access to the publisher's content or the preserved content as appropriate; it provides a web-based administrative interface that allows the library staff to target new journals for preservation, monitor the state of the journals being preserved, and control access to the preserved journals." [Tags:
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[link: Hits] This is a really nice resource. Pick a category, pick a stat, and compare the nations of the world. Who grows the most barley? Russia, followed by Ukraine and Canada (we need it for the beer). Or if you don't know what to look for, just serach, and find boths stats and commentary. Or just browse by
country. I used to buy copies of the World Almanac and read them, but this is
way better. Via
Educational Technology.
[Tags:
Canada,
Ontologies] [
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[link: Hits] Michael Feldstein briefly summarizes his conversations with Blackboard's Matthew Small and Desire2Learn's CEO John Baker. "I emphasized that, even if I thought that Blackboard's patent were valid, I would still oppose their efforts because of the damage that an environment of patent litigation will have on innovation." He
also links to a nice article from
Stephen Marshall summarizing the Blackboard Town Hall meeting at EDUCAUSE. "The idea that the creation of software should be a legally bounded and constrained activity is repugnant personally and its sad that increasingly lawyers seem to be controlling innovation in software rather than programmers." And I echo Feldstein: yup. [Tags:
Web Logs,
Blackboard,
Copyright and Patent Issues,
Desire2Learn] [
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[link: Hits] Appreciate what you have. And do your best to make a better world. Via
Presentation Zen.
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I want and visualize and aspire toward a system of society and learning where each person is able to rise to his or her fullest potential without social or financial encumberance, where they may express themselves fully and without reservation through art, writing, athletics, invention, or even through their avocations or lifestyle.
Where they are able to form networks of meaningful and rewarding relationships with their peers,
with people who share the same interests or hobbies, the same political or religious affiliations - or different
interests or affiliations, as the case may be.
This to me is a society where knowledge and learning are public goods, freely created and shared,
not hoarded or withheld in order to extract wealth or influence.
This is what I aspire toward, this is what I work toward. - Stephen Downes